Hey Tom, you were telling us about some trucks 50-60 years ago having a BUICK inline 8 engine as an auxiliary power boost. Were these built into the trailer itself or was it an add on attached to the trailer? I would have been interesting to see that work.

Truck drivers will amaze you with their ideas that idea is still in use the military has pusher units with torque converters, Cole has the units that go behind his 300 ton lowboys with 650 hp Cummins engines with torque converters no transmissions he did use another truck for awhile and Cat uses the dual engine setup on some models of scraper

I watched something on one of the cable networks where they were moving something too large( may have been a boat) for just one semi tractor so there was one pushing from the rear. But they weren't going much faster than walking speed. It reminds me of some trains where you see locomotives in the middle or end of a long long train. Bus and truck engines nowadays don't even break a sweat on steep grades but adding more power in the old days must have required some inventive ideas and interesting items of museum caliber.

Before big 4WD tractors were available in western Canada farmers used to drop the front axles and scab two 2WD tractors together with varying degrees of sophistication. The one that I saw up close was a pair of 930 Cases that were set up to drive from the rear seat with a pretty crude lever system to run the controls on the front engine. That particular one had hand clutches - that rear platform would have been a very happening place when you made the turn on the headlands. And it had no cab so you would get to eat the diesel smoke from 2 Case engines.

Father used to tell stories about some neighbours who pushed snow on the municipal roads with a pair of WD series Internationals fitted up with a push pole between them. The guy on the front tractor got to pick the gear and did so by holding up the appropriate number of fingers based on how bad the drifts looked ahead of him.

Back when I was a kid and hauling logs we took a huge skyline yarder over a couple of mountain ranges with an off highway Kenworth pulling the yarder, and a log truck pulling on the front of that, and me pushing on the back end.

All I remember is dust so thick you couldn't see, and trying to coordinate three rigs all shifting at different times. What a day.

The setup with a Buick straight 8 under the trailer was told to me by an old truck driver. I've been searching to see an info, but am coming up blank. Maybe was just a truck driver story...?

Best huge rig I ever saw was a couple years ago going up highway 395 from L.A. to Mammoth Lakes. At night, the old heat exchangers from San Onofre power station (which is being closed) were being transported to Utah to be buried since they were mildly nuclear reactive. The entire rig weighed in at 1.5 million pounds. Was pulled by one, and pushed by 4 trucks. When pulling the Cajon Pass, they added one to the front and pulled the pass at 18mph-pretty good! The best part, which I loved the best, was all the trucks were equipped with Allison 7spd 4700 automatics! I was at 4 corners where highways 58 and 395 came together and they stopped for a bit waiting for the next portion of 395 to be cleared (the truck took the entire width of the 2 lane). When they started out, the 1.5 million pounds just accelerated out as easy as could be. As compared to a Pete I once saw pulling a 250,000lb load-starting up the Pete bounced all over the place fighting to get rolling. Amazing how well a torque converter works to get a load moving. Virtually all military vehicles have automatics (mostly Allison). Good Luck, TomC

Thanks Tom. I couldn't find anything either so maybe it was a homemade thing on the trailer or maybe the old guy was telling tales. Probably the same guy that siad he would have a beer or two with the Martians every Friday with their saucer parked outside. Amen on the ALLSION or any automatic transmission. I know there are stick die hards out there but as a 28 year delivery driver, I appreciate an automatic and all of the vehicles I used over the years never offered manual anyway. Then some say that automatics are for sissys. Tell that to as you said our mililtary. All firetrucks and police vehicles are automatic since those people have enough things on their mind without bothering about double clutching.

Ed,No, it was a Skagit. Madill never made any real big ones I don't believe. This was back in the days of 1 1/2" skyline cable. We still had the tower on that yarder when we took it over the hills too. Massive weight. We had to go that way because it was too heavy for even off highway bridges. It was all on Weyerhaeuser roads.

TomC, why do you post "stuff" like the San Onofre steam generator transportation . You know darn good and well that some idiot (like me) will spend half the evening searching for information on that "train".

During the search, I ran across a TON of hits on the very premature failure of the replacement steam generators and the ultimate decision to close the plant. The articles and blogs are very diverse in their thoughts on nuclear power and all the related "politics".

TomC, why do you post "stuff" like the San Onofre steam generator transportation . You know darn good and well that some idiot (like me) will spend half the evening searching for information on that "train".

During the search, I ran across a TON of hits on the very premature failure of the replacement steam generators and the ultimate decision to close the plant. The articles and blogs are very diverse in their thoughts on nuclear power and all the related "politics".

They talk about unit 2 and 3. Unit one was the first experimental nuclear power plant there that was disassembled years ago.

The combination of the massive costs of removing, transporting the steam generators to Utah, then installing the new steam generators. With the down time of not generating any income, and the fact that San Onofres new design didn't work, is the combination reason the power plant is being shuttered. Many around the plant are happy about that. It just goes to show that many times the original design is the best to work with. Good Luck, TomC